Values Informing Former Refugees’ Good Life Experiences and Endeavors

Abstract

We explore the role of personal values in the experiences and endeavors of a good life among Hmong and Somali former refugees who have resettled in the United States. Using thematic analysis of semi-structured qualitative interviews, we first identify and examine personal values central to their sense of a good life. With a person-centered analysis, we then highlight patterns showing how different values are related to one another in former refugees’ statements of a good life. We highlight how former refugees’ life experiences may lead them to hold motivationally opposing values that typically do not coexist as value priorities.